Interspersed with Cartography’s coverage of the CCA conference were a couple of tidbits about the government’s decision to get out of the business of paper maps. From this post:

Representatives of [Natural Resources Canada] were there to explain their plans for paper topographic maps and answer the many questions and heated comments from audience members. Essentially nothing has changed. Paper maps will still be discontinued. Raster files of the sheets will be made available to distributors — although none have appeared yet. Eventually all the topographic data will be replaced by a set of vector data layers collectively to be called CanVec — but don’t hold your breath as this won’t occur for another 3 years.

Tie this in with the rumour that Natural Resources Canada was set to release topo data in shapefile format free of charge, this week, but was put on hold by the minister responsible while he reassesses the situation.

See previous entries: Paper Maps: Doomed in Canada, But Not Elsewhere?; Canadian Topo Map Update: CBC Coverage; Canadian Topo Map Update: Globe and Mail Coverage; Canadian Government Abandoning Paper Topo Maps?